The problem of fast acquisition of carrier frequency and phase, sampling phase, and equalizer training for a digital communications system with quadrature modulation is well known in the art. Acquiring such parameters, particularly in an environment that is disturbed by intersymbol interference (ISI), presents an even greater challenge to the receiver design engineer. The use of analog carrier recovery loops are both expensive to manufacture, and often require field adjustments in order to keep operating properly. Furthermore, the use of pilot tones, or special frequency correction tones wastes signal energy and reduces system capacity. Lastly, the effects of ISI, and in particular, channel delay spread, often results in undetected errors in the incoming signal. Such errors require either a redundant process to remedy, or are left uncorrected which may result in unintelligible transmission.
Accordingly, there exists a dire need for a communication systems receiver which provides fast acquisition of carrier frequency and phase, and is not constrained by the aforementioned shortcomings.